Good news, bad news

 Good news:  We found pizza last night!  I had heard rumors of this great pizza place up in the hills away from town.  Last night at happy hour (no copyright, patent not applied for) Wendy said "Hey, I've got a car and I'm going for pizza!"  From her description, it sounded like the place.  So Ian, Lesley and I piled into Wendy's car and headed 15 miles down the road to this undeniably charming outdoor bar/pizza joint run by Max.  Five types of pizza, $20 FJD (less than $10 USD).  Max has a real oven and knows how to make pizza.  Delicious. Equivalent in size to a large pizza back home.  Plus there was a blue heeler named Bear who put his snoot on my leg begging for pizza.  He got fed too.

Bad news:  Max's pizza place is only open Friday nights!  There's just not enough business right now during cyclone season.  He said when the sailors come back he'll probably open Sunday nights as well.

Good news:  I have measured the exact time it takes for a sunny morning with no wind to turn into a shitty overcast day with torrential rainfall:  Ten laps around the boat.  How does this qualify as 'good news'?  As a counterpoint to the next paragraph...

Bad news:  It's a shitty overcast day with torrential rain.  Actually, it's been like this for almost a week.  Hear it from the horse's mouth, the Fiji Meteorological Service:

SPECIAL WEATHER BULLETIN NUMBER TWENTY FOUR ON HEAVY RAIN ISSUED FROM THE NATIONAL WEATHER FORECASTING CENTRE, NADI AT 04.30PM ON SATURDAY 18TH FEBRUARY, 2023. HEAVY RAIN WARNING A HEAVY RAIN WARNING REMAINS IN FORCE FOR THE WHOLE OF FIJI GROUP. SITUATION: AN ACTIVE TROUGH OF LOW PRESSURE LIES OVER THE GROUP. ASSOCIATED CLOUD AND RAIN IS EXPECTED TO AFFECT THE GROUP TILL LATER SUNDAY

What this bureaucratic announcement doesn't tell you about is all the schools that have been cancelled, the flash flood warnings, the coastal inundation warnings and oh, yeah, the abnormally high tides:

SITUATION: ABNORMAL HIGH TIDES ARE EXPECTED OVER FIJI FROM THE 18TH TO 21ST OF FEBRUARY WHICH MAY LEAD TO SEA FLOODING OF COASTAL AREAS OF SOUTHERN PARTS OF FIJI.

Ok, we're in the northern part of Fiji, but still.  I have John Fogarty running nonstop in my head:  Who'll Stop the Rain?

 

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